i hear there;s some good eastman acoustic dreads out there-anyone own one of these-i've seen a couple without pickguards-why is this? how do the dreads measure up with the likes of taylor, martin, larrivee, recording king?

Captaincranky

01-01-2013 10:41 PM

Guitars without pick guards, ostensibly are truer sounding than with them, as the plastic could possibly have an adverse effect of the vibrational and harmonic characteristics of the top itself.

Whether or not this is audible, I refrain from voicing an opinion.
In a stylistic sense, the argument that is made is guitars without pick guards have a "cleaner" or "sleeker" look.

Here again, to each his own.

The third point would be, perhaps any given manufacturer might reasonably expect that a large percentage of their guitars would be used for finger style work, thus eliminating the need for a pickguard.

This isn't terribly unreasonable, as a person looking for a cedar top steel string, might indeed be motivated by the cedar top's friendliness toward that technique.

In any event, guitars without pick guards seem to be trending. In my paltry collection of 7, only 2 have pickguards

As far as comparing Eastman guitars to other brands, sorry I can't be of much help.

In fact, I get "Eastman" and "Eastwood" guitars confused all the time. :shrug: :facepalm:

stepchildusmc

01-02-2013 07:25 AM

i like Robert Taylor's theory on pickguards.... if you get to a point in your playing that you feel that you need a higher end guitar, your good enough not to need a pickguard.
that's why most Taylors higher than the 3 series don't have them.